[Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[lofreq]

>Because click without key modifiers has other uses. Maybe you
>shouldn't be using selections on a bigger layer,  and instead be
>using a text layer for each piece of text.

I write my text by hand using a tablet and template file. Sorry, I didn't
clarify this originally. Anyways, in a large paragraph, you can understand how
that might be like trying to arrange magnetic poetry... but having to go through
the rigamarole in order to move any individual piece.

>The first (and most obvious) alternative is to make this behavior a 
>user configurable option in the GIMP preferences -- like we already 
>have for whether the Move tool should default to picking to moving 
>(I prefer picking).
>A second alternative would be to give the selection tools a sensitivity 
>threshold -- i.e. you must click and drag the cursor a minimum # of 
>screen pixels before the tool will start the drag action.  I wonder if this
> could have solved most of those accidental microadjustments 
>people complained about in GIMP 2.2 without introducing a breaking 
>change

Obviously, making this adjustable would be ideal. How hard could it be to throw
in a checkbox someplace? And if the functionality was already there in a
previous version, then it wouldn't take too much to bring it back again +
toggle.

>This might work or might be irritating to people who want to move by one pixel.

Arrow keys?

>I very seldom want to move the contents of the selection. I edit a lot 
>of photos, and on a photo that just leaves a ragged white hole behind. 
>In the rare event that I want to move just part of a transparent layer), 
>it's easy, Select->Float (Shift-Ctrl-L).

Floating layers are the bane of my existence. I want to nudge a selection this
way or that for half a second, not commit it to a whole new layer (and then
ctrl+h immediately for every single minute adjustment; and don't get me started
on why that's got to be a different command than merging a normal layer) every
time. When you're moving 20 things around in the span of about 2 minutes, that
gets cumbersome very, very quickly.

-- 
lofreq (via www.gimpusers.com/forums)
___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Akkana Peck]

Richard writes:
> Oh, boy, THIS subject.  Where my workflow is concerned this was the BIGGEST 
> breaking change GIMP ever made -- yes, even bigger than when 2.8 split Save 
> and Export.  (And we remember all the complaints over that, right?)
> 
> I am one of those where when I no-modifier click and drag a selection my 
> preferred action is to pick up those pixels and move them around (rather than 
> shifting the mask).  It is ... a minimum of annoying that we have zero means 
> of configuring GIMP to match our workflow in this respect.

Just so you hear from the other side ...

For me, the new selection tools, where drag moved the selection mask
(not its contents) was a huge win. I was forever frustrated at how hard
it was to move a selection, especially with ellipse selections where
you can't tell when you start dragging where the top left of the
ellipse will end up. I remember always having to switch to the Move
tool, change mode to "Move selection", drag, change modes back then
change tools. I was fairly new then, so maybe there was an easier
way via a modifier key that I just never discovered.

I very seldom want to move the contents of the selection. I edit a
lot of photos, and on a photo that just leaves a ragged white hole
behind. In the rare event that I want to move just part of a
transparent layer), it's easy, Select->Float (Shift-Ctrl-L).

I'm not saying Richard is wrong -- I know he's not alone, I've heard
enough people who miss the old behavior. Just that for me, the
current UI is much better, and that it's a lot easier now to move
the selection contents than it used to be to move the selection.
If the default ever changes to float-and-move, please include an
easy and discoverable way to move the selection mask without needing
to change tools or tool options.

> A second alternative would be to give the selection tools a sensitivity 
> threshold -- i.e. you must click and drag the cursor a minimum # of screen 
> pixels before the tool will start the drag action.  I wonder if this could 
> have solved most of those accidental microadjustments people complained about 
> in GIMP 2.2 without introducing a breaking change

In my case it had nothing to do with threshold; it was more the lack
of an easy, intuitive way to move the mask.

...Akkana
___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Richard]

Did someone's email get missed or am I just not seeing it?



> From: gimp-user-list <gimp-user-list-boun...@gnome.org> on behalf of Ofnuts 
> <ofn...@gmx.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 4:47 AM
> To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
> Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

> AFAIK this is settable in Windows and Linux (5px in the KDE default
> settings), together with a minimum click-down delay.  I don't know if
> Gimp uses the system's drag notification or if it cooks its own, but
> anyway because of this people are used to "shake" before dragging on
> short distances.


Windows Click and drag thresholds aren't (ever?) visibly reconfigurable, you 
have to edit the system registry to change it.  The default threshold is 4px, 
and GIMP definitely does NOT acknowledge this (click-drag initiates at 1px).  
Can we bugfile this?  And just add it to the long laundry list of Windows OS 
settings GIMP doesn't respect (Windows native filepicker, Alt to activate the 
menubar...)


[tangent] ...though to be fair, GIMP uses Alt as a modifier in its own right so 
having Alt do double duty between modifier key and menubar access is rife with 
problems (it's actually easy to control whether Alt is used as a modifier or 
for menu access -- the real problem is writing the logic that decides WHEN the 
Alt key should cause which response).  Besides, I wager most people are used to 
accessing menus via click/tap anyway; I know I am.


> The plain click-drag is used for other things. In ellipse and rectangle
> selection, this moves the selection mask...


Did it do that in GIMP 2.2 (before the plainclick-and-drag behavior got 
changed) ?  If not then the present behavior actually is more consistent across 
all select tools, but some alternative to the current behavior would still be 
nice for those of us who need to move selected content around a lot.


(I also have my own complaints about the Ellipse and Rectangle selects 
specifically, but let's not go there.)



-- Stratadrake
strata_ran...@hotmail.com

Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.

___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Ofnuts]

On 21/10/16 05:09, Liam R. E. Quin wrote:



A second alternative would be to give the selection tools a
sensitivity threshold -- i.e. you must click and drag the cursor a
minimum # of screen pixels before the tool will start the drag
action.

This might work or might be irritating to people who want to move by
one pixel.


AFAIK this is settable in Windows and Linux (5px in the KDE default 
settings), together with a minimum click-down delay.  I don't know if 
Gimp uses the system's drag notification or if it cooks its own, but 
anyway because of this people are used to "shake" before dragging on 
short distances.

I wish we had on-click, on-drag script hooks so that this choice could
be scripted. Imagine making the default be to move and use
resynthesizer to fill in the missing details!


Me too.  Even more if this doesn't impact the mouse response time :)

Without that, seems to me the current situation isn't bad, and that
there have been fewer complaints this way round, even though I can see
it's not ideal.


The plain click-drag is used fro other things. In ellipse and rectangle 
selection, this moves the selection mask...



___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Liam R. E. Quin]

On Fri, 2016-10-21 at 00:29 +, Richard wrote:
> 
[...]
> The first (and most obvious) alternative is to make this behavior a
> user configurable option in the GIMP preferences -- like we already
> have for whether the Move tool should default to picking to moving (I
> prefer picking).

Fewer options better. Easier to learn. Easier to help people. Easier to
test.


> A second alternative would be to give the selection tools a
> sensitivity threshold -- i.e. you must click and drag the cursor a
> minimum # of screen pixels before the tool will start the drag
> action.

This might work or might be irritating to people who want to move by
one pixel.

I wish we had on-click, on-drag script hooks so that this choice could
be scripted. Imagine making the default be to move and use
resynthesizer to fill in the missing details!

Without that, seems to me the current situation isn't bad, and that
there have been fewer complaints this way round, even though I can see
it's not ideal.

Liam [ankh]


-- 
Liam R. E. Quin 

The best thing about being a slave is not having a mortgage to pay.
Oh, wait... I'm doing this wrong.
___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Richard]

From: gimp-user-list <gimp-user-list-boun...@gnome.org> on behalf of Alexandre 
Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoud...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 4:41 PM
To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 2:15 AM, Michael Schumacher wrote:

> Ages ago, click-drags did move the selection content without additional
> modifier keys.
>
> But we got complaints that it is far too easy to accidentally move this
> selected content by minute amounts and not even notice this. So it got
> changed to the current behavior.

And I can't help myself wondering if that was a case of a vocal
minority affecting a design decision that now irritates a vocal
majority :)

Alex
___


Oh, boy, THIS subject.  Where my workflow is concerned this was the BIGGEST 
breaking change GIMP ever made -- yes, even bigger than when 2.8 split Save and 
Export.  (And we remember all the complaints over that, right?)

I am one of those where when I no-modifier click and drag a selection my 
preferred action is to pick up those pixels and move them around (rather than 
shifting the mask).  It is ... a minimum of annoying that we have zero means of 
configuring GIMP to match our workflow in this respect.


While the decision to change it was definitely made in good faith, I wonder if 
it was made largely because (1) it was easy to remap how the selection tools 
handle modifiers, and (2) a lack of proposed alternatives?


The first (and most obvious) alternative is to make this behavior a user 
configurable option in the GIMP preferences -- like we already have for whether 
the Move tool should default to picking to moving (I prefer picking).


A second alternative would be to give the selection tools a sensitivity 
threshold -- i.e. you must click and drag the cursor a minimum # of screen 
pixels before the tool will start the drag action.  I wonder if this could have 
solved most of those accidental microadjustments people complained about in 
GIMP 2.2 without introducing a breaking change


-- Stratadrake
strata_ran...@hotmail.com

Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.



___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Alexandre Prokoudine]

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 2:15 AM, Michael Schumacher wrote:

> Ages ago, click-drags did move the selection content without additional
> modifier keys.
>
> But we got complaints that it is far too easy to accidentally move this
> selected content by minute amounts and not even notice this. So it got
> changed to the current behavior.

And I can't help myself wondering if that was a case of a vocal
minority affecting a design decision that now irritates a vocal
majority :)

Alex
___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Michael Schumacher]

On 10/21/2016 01:06 AM, Ofnuts wrote:
> On 20/10/16 19:30, lofreq wrote:
>> So my two questions are as follows, I guess:
>> 
>> 1. Is it at all possible to just click and drag selections? Why is
>> it necessary to hold down ctrl+alt to accomplish this?
> 
> Because click without key modifiers has other uses. 

Ages ago, click-drags did move the selection content without additional
modifier keys.

But we got complaints that it is far too easy to accidentally move this
selected content by minute amounts and not even notice this. So it got
changed to the current behavior.


-- 
Regards,
Michael
GPG: 96A8 B38A 728A 577D 724D 60E5 F855 53EC B36D 4CDD
___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Re: [Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[Ofnuts]

On 20/10/16 19:30, lofreq wrote:

So my two questions are as follows, I guess:

1. Is it at all possible to just click and drag selections? Why is it necessary
to hold down ctrl+alt to accomplish this?


Because click without key modifiers has other uses. Maybe you shouldn't 
be using
selections on a bigger layer,  and instead be using a text layer for 
each piece of text.

2. Is the masking behavior of floating layers a bug or a feature? Either or, it
needs fixing. Or at the very least a toggle, because I can't imagine a single
instance where that would be preferable to just using an actual mask.


What you want is Layer>Layer to image size.

___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

[Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[lofreq]

I am a new user, but I know exactly what I need from GIMP.  I tested out my
workflow from start to finish the other day, and while most of my flubs were
from inexperience, a lost a lot of time to trying to move selections around. I
did some research and found that many others share similar frustrations with how
unintuitive the move tool is in this regard. Is there any talk of redesigning
it?

I also encountered another problem with the feature that I did not see addressed
anywhere else, which may be actually a bug. So what I use it for (and have with
great ease and efficiency in Photoshop) is in "hand" lettering my comics -
basically, I will write out the contents of the word balloons in a template
file, copy and paste them into my pages, and fine-tune their placement. These
wind up being hand-written letters on transparent layers. The dimensions of
these layers are much smaller than that of the page itself. However, I usually
need to move individual words or lines of text around once I've pasted it on top
of the word balloon, and I've found that I cannot move the selection/floating
layer beyond the borders of the original layer. In fact, it disappears,
functioning like a mask. I know the current solution is to copy/paste the
selection content into a new layer, but that seems excessive, given that
sometimes I have to move dozens of words or lines around on any given page, and
sometimes by only a few pixels, especially in the case of tweaking the spacing
between individual letters.

So my two questions are as follows, I guess:

1. Is it at all possible to just click and drag selections? Why is it necessary
to hold down ctrl+alt to accomplish this?

2. Is the masking behavior of floating layers a bug or a feature? Either or, it
needs fixing. Or at the very least a toggle, because I can't imagine a single
instance where that would be preferable to just using an actual mask.

-- 
lofreq (via www.gimpusers.com/forums)
___
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:gimp-user-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list